Fun fact: carbon transfer printing was used as a plotpoint in one of the Columbo episodes. The killer destroyed incriminating letter, but forgot about ink ribbon...
@@IRMacGuyver knowing Columbo and having watched the episode he got permission to search off camera, he didn't coerce but merely irritated the suspect intermittently and stated exactly what happened by reverse engineering it, he gets a conviction on the circumstantial evidence....... plus the bonus that it's just a TV show and like so many aren't portraying reality.
I was in the US Army in the mid 80's and we used these Word Processors in the office. As I recall the reason for the reduced capacity on the floppy was due to formatting that reserved space for document metadata resulting in lower capacity for your documents.
You can still buy Brother typewriter ribbon from most Staples stores- a LOT of places still use typewriters and even machines like this for things like report filing, so the demand is still there. The cartridges are sealed up really well, so even if the exposed piece of ribbon dries out, the rest of it will be fine by and large. Another good show- thanks for posting!
"A lot" is a bit of an exaggeration. The main customers for typewriters now are prisons, since many prisoners are not allowed to have computers. Some intelligence agencies use them for the same reason. Some funeral parlors use them too, in part due to obsolete laws. Whenever a computer is allowed as an option, it is nearly always used instead of a typewriter. Maybe the biggest exception is banks that use them to print checks if they simply never upgraded, but even that is becoming rare.
@@EebstertheGreat I had asked at Staples at that time who was buying all the typewriter ribbon, he said it was title companies, funeral homes, and churches- citing that most have at least one still in use. For a technology that is incredibly obsolete, that constitutes "a lot" of users to me.
@@performa9523 Yep, Staples employee here. We do sell a surprisingly large selection of them. Most are bought by funeral homes and small local loan offices. There are also a few elderly business owners in my area who also come in often to buy them as they still use typewriters/word processors for keeping track of business expenses. I actually sold a brand new Smith-Corona electric typewriter (yes-- they still make them and Staples still carries one in some stores) the other day. Although obsolete, there's still a market for them. Who would've thought? Also, Staples carries or can order ribbons for old IBM printers too. I have a PC/XT Model 286 with the printer and order ribbons for it at work all the time. So if anyone has an old IBM printer, you can find the ribbons there.
I have a word processor with a daisywheel, I actually had to write an essay on it once when my parents took away my computer privileges! I love this stuff, I have several typewriters too. My word processor also had a typewriter mode but in addition to the ink ribbon it had an eraser ribbon, so you could erase mistakes
True, but if you were that intent on making sure that what you had typed wouldnt end up in the wrong hands, you could just use a persuasion stick to persuade the cartridge open and dispose of the tape, then dispose of it with fire. Keep in mind that today you have something in your computer that does essentially the same thing, the spinning disc hard drive doesnt ever fully delete the files unless you 0 format, its happened a few times where ive gotten a hold of old computer for the use of fixing them up and selling them on for cheap, and found some interesting items on the drive even after the person has said they "erased" the drive freeware programs abound that can find old files windows says have been erased, mostly cause windows never actually erases them, it simply marks them for overwrite.
I remember these. I was fond of the Panasonic one. The original MSRP for both machines was in the area of $300. I remember the one I used in the classroom being old, and not well maintained; it caught fire whilst I was typing a report. As I had no other access to word processing units at the time and the assignment was due the next day, I was given a pass due to the circumstances. One of the fair and reasonable teachers I had, one of three.
Interestingly, I had the earlier model (nearly identical, just grey in color) of the Panasonic. My folks bought it for me when I was in the 8th grade. That ran us $600 and change almost $700, I recall. I believe we purchased it from Circuit City. The amount of writing I did on that thing between the 8th and 10th grades (after which I had a Mac plus), is actually astounding. Sadly, I sold it for pennies when I was in college... only to get into a bidding war on eBay for an exact replacement because I was working on a personal "museum" of computers from my past.SMH I WISH kids of today could have experienced what we (in my age group) did. They know nothing of modems, BBSes, 8-bit video games nor catalog cards in libraries!!!LOL
I had the Brother in high school and college. I loved to hear that printing sound again. Always a triumph to hear that sound as that meant my paper was finished! Thanks for the fond memories today
Nice find, was it in fully working condition when you found it? I love to hit the local recycle drop off every so often, and see what people throw away in the electronics bin, and have gotten a few useful computers, monitors, and keyboards.
@@markinnes4264 :( That's too bad. I wrote my self-published poetry "journal" booklet on mine in HS. Used a photocopy machine, scissors, and stapler in the library to "publish" it. Fond memories of the amber screen.
Yo tenía 35 años de edad cuando comencé a vender este tipo de aparatos, máquinas de escribir que parecían computadores. Luego, entre algunos de mis clientes, pronto comenzaron a solicitarme computadores tipo 386 y, por supuesto, el negocio propio se me creció, pues hasta podía ensamblarlos y programarlos yo mismo. De modo que volver a ver estas máquinas imprimiendo con sus ruedas margaritas, su ruido, su velocidad, me permitió volver completamente al pasado....!!! Qué maravilla de videos como este! Saludos, muchas, muchas gracias por hacer posible semejante experiencia!! (desde Bogotá, Colombia)
David, your content is very well done but most of all, super interesting! I have learned a lot with your videos and I am sure I am not the only one. So, from all of us, thank you.
I've got a Corona Typewriter that was my Grandmother's. The ribbon is probably from the 60s at the latest, and it still has a bit of life in it. Those things last a surprisingly long time!
I don't get it. Theoretically, maybe. But unless someone knew exactly what they were looking for, at the exact time they were used... You think anyone was going to unwind these, reading word by word with no reference marks? You're thinking like a marketer for IT security. An actual "black hat" would never waste time, or literally get his hands dirty, with ribbons. One would get more info by listening to water-cooler gossip.
@@squirlmy This wasn't a risk, it was a reality. lots of historic instances where authors had their preprinted books leaked because they threw out the ribbons in the trash and someone just took their trash to read the ribbons.
@@squirlmy Going through a few hundred feet of very legible tape is a way easier method of espionage than many of the ways you'd have to do back in the day.
I have my dad's Brother AX-26 Word Processing typewriter. It's great and it still works! I've even used it on college assignments. I bought replacement ink ribbons for like, a dollar each. Though the one he had inside still worked until a few weeks ago where I finally replaced it with one of mine. One of my favorite features is the correct/erase ribbon. Crazy technology.
As a late 90s baby this is amazing to see. I love seeing old tech and I know we have “word processing” programs but to see a physical word processor makes me appreciate how quickly technology has advanced. Thanks for making this really cool content.
Just on a side note my friend had a dot matrix printer that used the same type of printer ribbon, and used WD-40 to get more ink out of the ribbon and got 3 times the life from the ribbon, one way to stretch the life of your printer ribbon.
I never used the WD-40 trick, but I can remember back late 90's - early 00's when I had a few different Canon BJC printers that had ink tanks filled with foam pads soaked with ink, and a trick to get more life out of them when they started to dry out from was to take a Q-Tip with a very slight amount of water on it, and rub the pads, and you could do it 2 or 3 times depending on how much you where printing each time, and if it was just almost out, or you had let it sit for a decent amount of time. God I miss those printers, I could get both color, and black for $7 USD, or a giant black tank for $12- $15 USD.
Holy crap my dad still has the WP25. I used to have SO much fun with ASCII and word art back in the early 90s on that thing. Wow, thank you so much for this 8-byte dude!
2:51 So, I'm going to take this opportunity to try typing something interesting on here and see what happens. One thing I often do is talk about some of the TV shows and movies I have been watching recently. I really like the second season of The Orville so far. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch Star Trek Discovery just yet. I didn't care all that much for the first season, but I'll eventually get around to watching it. I have also started watching a show from 1980 called "The Greatest American Hero," which I somehow missed when I was younger. It's actually not bad.
To comment on his letter: it wasn't that bad in the 80s, it's pretty bad trying to watch it now. As well, unless they fixed it recently, the DVD copies removed all the original commercial music in the show (such as 'eve of destruction' which was used throughout the show) for new cheaper alternative songs.
Yeah, surprised he didn't pick up on the obvious RAM at the bottom as well. Anything with a -20 or -10 at the end is always memory, that number is the access time maximum in nanoseconds.
I owned a Brother WP in 1988 and loved it. Back then, a lot of professors would not accept papers printed on a dot matrix printer, so the crisp print of the Brother was perfect. For writing papers and articles for the school newspaper, it was a great deal at even a few hundred bucks: word processor with floppy disc memory, printer, and monitor. I did, however, upgrade to a Mac Plus (and then a Mac SE), but friends who acquired the WP, which they nicknamed "whimpy," got a lot of use out of it. When the monitor ceased functioning, they simply used the typewriter mode.
I always dreamt of having a machine like this when growing up (never having heard of word processors before this; I always envisionned a cheaper, more limited laptop). Wish these were still common place - an organizational tool with integrated printer sounds AMAZING
Brought back memories. I, actually my GF, typed out my undergrad papers on a vintage Remington. A few years later she typed my grad school papers on a C-64 with Visawrite to a dot matrix printer. Still have the C-64 and the typist, who’s been my wife for 40 years.
Great video. I was in the Air Force between 1984 and 1990. I was a types and they taught us to type on IBM electric typewriters in tech school. Which was a step up from my high school which taught us on manual typewriters. When I was stationed at Nellis AFB I was given a dedicated word processor to use as well as a IBM typewriter. The word processor was a CPT. What was unique was the monitor which was integrated was orientated in portrait mode so that you could view an entire page of text. The floppy disks were 8" and it had only one. I later upgraded to the next model which was smaller called the CPT Jr obviously a rip off from the IBM PC Jr. It used 3.5" floppies. I used one other type of word processor when I was a Luke AFB. It was a Wang. It used 5.25" floppies and booted its OS from one of them. It claimed to be MS DOS comparable but I did try and boot off a DOS 3.2 disk and it had a loud continue be from its speaker. All of those word processors used a daisy wheel printer.
that Brother unit and its floppy drive holds many mysteries indeed. I recently acquired a similar unit with non-functional keyboard and floppy. The keyboard is a membrane type with no real PCB, it is just copper paint sandwiched between two plastic layers. I was able to fix the keyboard with copper tape. The floppy made the same sound like yours. Boy, was it easy to get to it? Noo. You have to disassemble almost all the unit to get to it. Eventually, I got to the floppy and replaced the belt, nothing fancy, just a square belt. Then the floppy started working. It is a very non-standard format, no regular computer can read this floppy, but recently someone created a program on an ARM devboard, which allows you to read and write the floppies using standard PC drive. There is even a converter software on a forum. Now I can write on the PC and transfer to unit for printing or vice versa. Brother Word Processors are the best. I think Brother PowerNote devices are also very relevant to your channel, you should have a look.
I had a typing class in the 7th grade that used those Brother machines. I remember when we printed our assignments at the end of the class, the whole room rang with Daisy wheels.
wow that might be the most beautiful thing I've seen in a while. the sound it makes when typing, that specific color of black on the paper and just everything about it beautiful.
I really like these one purpose machine, you feel high when you use them because they don't allow the dissipation of your mind with other unrelated features.
I imagine the photographer for that catalog purposefully stuck the diskette backwards in the machine to show the more distinctive gate end, so that it's more recognizable as a diskette drive.
This brings back memories, my family had a Brother word processor before we had a PC, I used it to label all my VHS tapes and it ever ran Tetris. I still went back to it for typing after we got our first PC because it was just easier to use for that purpose than a windows 95 PC and printer.
Some of the "last gasp" word processors in the '90s got a lot more advanced, including an external monitor, inkjet printer that could print full graphics, a serial port so you could connect it to a modem and go online with BBSes or text-based online services, and a full 1.44 MB capacity floppy drive.
Even if it's maybe not well known in America, I kind of trust you have to know the Amstrad PCW machines. I'd really would like to watch a video on those! Amazing pieces of hardware to compare with, mainly because in many aspects those were full-blown CP/M computers, even if mainly aimed at word processing (and, to a lesser degree, some other productivity tasks like spreadsheets). Actually, they had a library of games ported to the system, or written for it!
I really enjoy your videos. Your intro and music you use are just so 80s. And you're so laid-back and passionate about what you're talking about. You're a nice escape from all the crappy stuff that's going on in the world nowadays. It's like I'm back in the wonderful 80s. I was only 2 when they ended though.
I love that amber monochrome screen on the Brother machine. I also like the sound of that daisywheel typewriter sound that comes from those printers, I never got to use one of those printers, I grew up in the dot-matrix screech age.
@@ct92404 - Luckily there's this little thing called sarcasm. Generally speaking you wouldn't actually be "lugging" this thing around all day. You might take it home if you had a deadline. You may decide to take a 'working' vacation, and transport it to your hotel or cabin. Most cases, unless the boss was particularly mean, you would only carry it home, twice a month or once a week. So the lugging is going to be between the place of work and the car and/or the home.
Oh my gosh! My uncle had that WP-85 Word Processor by brother! It was before PC's were popular. I remember it so well, him, me and my sister used to do 'projects' where we would write about all different kinds of topics and research (even at like age 4-6! I was born in 1986). The yellow screen graphics and his was really new and still made that weird buzzing lol! I remember he had daisy wheels to change font too. We eventually got a newer Word Processor and it had a tank and jet game but wasnt a pc. It was also a Brother. I'm so happy to see this!
I should note I am pretty sure it had the spreadsheet without inputting any other disks and should have a main menu. Really happy to see this as my Uncle passed away a while ago and its a great memory of him. I want to find one of my own now! :)
First "computer" I ever used was a word processor in 1992 to write a paragraph for first grade. It felt like magic. Still the sounds fill me with nostalgia. It wouldn't be for another seven years until I send an email. So that first word processor from this generation was amazing! Great video.
I've got a WP-75. It's essentially the same unit as that one. What's curious to me is the CRT. It IS very crisp which is common among the monocrome CRT of the era. But what's really odd, is the aspect ratio! It's super wide. Almost 2:1 wide. And mine isn't a true amber display in that it doesn't use an amber phosphor. It just has an amber filter over the front of it. The printer unit on mine was *mostly* broken, so I'm trying to cannibalize it for the CRT to make a mini arcade cabinet out of it (with my own game of course, I can't imagine emulation going over well on it). Imagine a scrolling vertical shooter on that thing! I just need to figure out how to feed it video and I'm off to the races! Edit: Just got to the section where you talked about hacking and programming the Z80. That would be neat. My current idea is to use a modern device (raz pi or something similar) to poke at the video memory so I can display whatever patterns I fancy.
I had a Brother typewriter in the late 80s to early 90s. It was a real workhorse. It was similar to this machine but it just had a small LCD screen and you could only see one line so it was more like type a line, make sure it is correct, then send it to the paper and just type to the paper which is what I normally did. It had a correction tape. I used it for shorter papers along with my Apple II and ImageWriter printer. It is amazing how reliable that stuff was compared to my modern InkJet printer which I regularly have to smack around.
My family had one of those Brother word processors before buying our first PC while was in high school. I remember typing a few reports and letter on that thing. It must have been a newer model since it had correction tape. Funny thing is it also had a playable version of Tetris on the 3.5 in floppy.
"Believe it or not, I'm walking on air, never thought I could feel so free... Flying away on a wing and a prayer. Who could it be? Believe it or not, it's just me." Loved that show!
I bought a typewriter once! I loved it, did not write as much as I thought I would but the technical aspect and the analogue way of doing it was great! Then I bought my first computer (C-64) and my qwerty skills was pretty good! :-) Word processor for me was Wordperfect on MS-DOS (can not remember which version, but Windows 3.0 was available then I think so about that time). With a good teacher it was bearable at least, soo many combinations and you had to be artist to envision what is actually coming out of the printer. Not much later WYSIWYG was a thing (with Windows and AmigaOS) and it was just great! But the driver and printer languages was (back then) a hit and a miss sort of... I did study a bit of Postscript and thought this is a game changer, but all the postscript printers was soo expensive. Then came PCL which put more on the computer then on the printer and they could output almost the same but with cheaper printers but with more "caveats". Specially the early HP PCL printers. Anyway! love the video! as usual!
I had two of those same Brother word processors. I bought one for $50 at a garage sale in 1992 and I found the other one sitting next to the trash in my apartment building about 5 years later. The word processing program is similar to Word Perfect. I enjoyed the typing part. As a speed typist it has a nice comfortable keyboard but I usually went somewhere else to print my documents because it's really loud.
OMG, have I just seen Commodore PC-I? It was my first PC, got it 1989 and had it until 1997. Emotions. It was a blessing and curse kind of computer, my first true love.
I had the Brother WP25; I wrote hundreds of high school and college assignments on it. I even typed my wedding program with it. It took two days to print 50 copies with text on back and front. The last thing I typed on it was the resume I used to escape retail.
I don't think it's TOO hard to re-ink a traditional ribbon. I remember those non-ink ribbons. Those are a bit of a security hazard if you use them for sensitive info, you have to dispose of those things correctly...
My mind instantly went thinking about taping your paper to be a cylinder to go through the printer endlessly and leaving something or someone to endlessly press all the keys to exhaust the ribbon until it's all just squares... But then I saw the replies mentioning burning them, which also sounds reasonable. Are they supposed to be burnt though? Wouldn't that cause some horrible smell or be bad ecologically speaking or something?
I owned one of those Panasonic word processors back in the day. It was a great little unit. It was marketed as a "smart typewriter" for those that didn't need (or want) a full-blown computer and it worked great at what it did. I used to enjoy typing documents into memory and then sitting back and watching the daisy-wheel printer print them out. You could even do mail-merge with them. I remember printing out a bunch of resumes with customized cover letters -- it was pretty slick.
The RAM on the Panasonic is part of the HD6303XP, its a microcontroller - that means it contains RAM, in this case 64k. It is also Motorola 6800 compatible - so a relative of the Altair 8800, Tandy CoCo etc
If memory serves, the Hitachi 6303 is a clone of the MC6803, which while a derivative of the 6800 series, doesn’t really have that much in common with the Color Computer’s 6809 microprocessor- the 6809 took a very different architectural path from the 6800 than the 6803 did. They’re cousins at best.
11:27 I actually know someone that would put a floppy disk in backwards, they're the same kind of person that would put a DVD in a VCR.. Don't get me wrong... it's not my parent.
We had a later Brother model in the 90's. It had the amber screen, and I seem to remember it having a correcting ribbon as well. And yes, later Brother word processors included a Tetris disk. I played the hell out of it!
David, do you still have "The worst condition VIC-20"? If it wasn't for that exact computer, I would have never discovered the world of retro computers.
In 1993 I had a cheaper typewriter-case style of Brother word processor. Daisy wheel and monochrome LED screen. The black info bar looked similar, IIRC. Oh, and the 3.5 floppy drive just grinded away like a kitchen appliance. Thanks for the video!
That backspace key is... in almost exactly the same place as the keyboard I'm using? I'm not sure where you're expecting it to be. Must be an american thing.
@KeeDx3 Depending on the context. it *can* be snarky. Americans on average tend to forget that the rest of the world exists and does things differently. In this instance though, it just means exactly what it says.
Brought back memories. My sister had a chunky Brother WP with a daisy wheel. I had a somewhat sleeker Panasonic. It was about half the height of the WPs in this video. It had a hardshell cover you put over the keyboard and screen, and had a small flip up LCD screen that displayed, I think, something like 4-6 lines of text. I don't remember the print mechanism but it was not daisy wheel (because my sister's, you could buy different wheels for new fonts and I was bummed I didn't have that option). Mine also took SS DD disks. No, it doesn't mean same [stuff] different day. Single Sided Double Density. Of course it was a rather obscure disk in the very early 90s. Plus you couldn't just hop online and look them up or try to buy them. I finally found out I could use a double sided disk, it just wouldn't use the other side (I guess I found this out from an in store worker).
Ooh, almost forgot. You could make up custom dictionaries for word spelling. So if you were writing a story with a lot of names, it was beneficial to set one up. It had a rudimentary dictionary built in too. You could even look up basic definitions of words (as long as it knew the words). For custom dictionaries, you'd have to load that before loading the word file you wanted to work on. Back then it felt so fancy and "important." I felt like Queen Fancypants using it lol. Of course everything we have now is better by far. But, wow, thanks for awakening those memories for me. Fun stuff!
thats the keyboard port, if you look in the brother model the wire for the keyboard wasn't detachable, but on the keyboard itself the wire terminated with an RJ11 port I think if you watch very closely as he first exposes the top of the mainboard you can see its connected, and when you look at all the other cables none of them have the same look as the keyboard, using Rj11 was pretty common on keyboard wiring, another one that used it was the first macintosh
Carbon ribbons and correction ribbons! I haven't seen those since I was a kid! My mom had a fairly decent typewriter and I distinctly remember that orange tab on the cartridge and those orange spools for the correction ribbon. I also remember how using the backspace key caused the carriage to back up and slam a head against the ribbon against the paper 3-4 times, fading the letter with each punch, until it was pretty much erased. And similar to the carbon ribbon, the letter you erased would appear on the ribbon itself!
Good to see you're getting caught up on The Greatest American Hero. One of my favorite shows as a kid and my mom made me a pretty accurate costume that I wore for Halloween and proceeded to wear out well after.
I don't recall the model number, but I had one of those brother word processors, it was almost like that, but it was "upgraded" model the carry handle slid out instead of swung out like that one and the keyboard wire was removed and I had a darker gray color, other than that it was identical to that one. I loved tech stuff when I was a kid and my mom thought it would help me in school we found it at a yard sale we got it for like $5 or $10, worked like new, just needed new ribbons which staples had and still has the last time I checked. This was around I'd say 1998 she got it for me, it did end up helping me write a few essays I had prior to word like software being so easy to get nowadays. I had it up to about 5 years ago, the printer door closed sensor snapped off, not wanting to try to fix it, it being outdated tech and stuff cluttering my house got rid of it, don't remember if I donated/gave/or tossed, but I know I don't have it anymore, haven't really thought about it till now, I did come across a floppy disc not long ago funny enough that I still had stuff saved on it.
I had that Panasonic thing when I started high school. The ribbon is a powder, a bit like copier toner on a clear plastic film. It rubs off the film very easily, and if you touch it you leave a perfect finger print on the film.
A bit fancier then our computerized typewriter. We still use our typewriter (it's from the late 80's) to type up personal letters and has actually held up well for a long time. Kinda cool to watch and hear it start up as it does it's self-test, lots of banging and rapid clicking when it initializes. If I remember right it does have a repeat function, anti-jam function, and has a connector on the back to connect to a Dos console (aka a computer) to send data to it, basically like a word printer. Seen it open a few times when it was being serviced, has an Intel 8088, like 32k of ram (can't remember exactly how much) and a disk on chip for running the programs. It has a normal qwerty mechanical keyboard built in minus a few buttons and numerical pad which makes it very easy to use if your going back and forth from your computer. Definitely from a time when everything was being computerized.
In India, in the late 80s and early 90s , we called them ' electronic typewriters' ( irrespective of other capabilities) . They were used for printing letters ,notes etc . Remember no emails . No cellphones.
We had something similar with "white out" eraser function, and I can remember the sound it made to this day on that machine, because my mom would get mad because we typed junk just to erase it and get it to make the sounds that it did, which resulted in empty cartridges.
I know this is a super late reply, but after a quick Google Search, I couldn't find any information on whether Brother made a WP-25 model, so... I'm not sure what happened during the production of the video?
I had a Brother word processor that was a few years newer than yours. It was VERY similar though. As far as I can tell, the differences were that mine used 720K disks, it was a darker color, and I think the screen was green. I'm guessing it had more RAM too. The rest was just about identical. You could play Tetris on it too! Edit: You showed the one I probably had! HAHA Nice!
I has a cannon starwrirer when at school - a portable word processor. I also remember another cannon starwrirer that had a mouse, monochrome monitor - like a computer but it had its own system. There was a 'games' option too and a paint program. I can't find much on the net about it. Great video
